Meggamouse
Meggamouse was a robot which competed in Series 9 of Robot Wars. Although it was entered by live circuit veterans Team Tilly on the show, the robot was built by Trevor Wright, who still owns the robot, and designed it as the successor to Series 7 Heat Finalist Mighty Mouse. Meggamouse was less successful on television, falling in the first round to the eventual champion Carbide. Design Like its predecessor Mighty Mouse, Meggamouse was built for speed, although now running on a four-wheel drive, with two exposed tyres at the back alongside its central primary wheels. It was one of the smallest robots in the series, with its longest side only measuring 80cm. The robot’s appearance takes on the head of a mouse, including a nose on its weapon, a full-pressure flipper. The flipper, which retracted using bungee cords and could lift 300kg, functioned as the robot’s self-righting mechanism, although Meggamouse generally rolled over when flipped. Its high speed came at the cost of armour, as the robot was coated in 6mm aluminium, with only the flipper being constructed from 4mm HARDOX. Meggamouse was comparatively lightweight at 96kg individually, and its rear wheels were exposed. This allowed the robot to briefly drive on its back end, but presented a weakness to spinners. The true drive wheels were the two small wheels in front of the large rear wheels at the back and the two small wheels at the front. The chassis of Meggamouse was that of the second Velocirippa, making it almost twelve years old in Series 9. Meggamouse was accompanied by an invertible minibot called Charles, which was wedge-shaped in design, resembling Swiss cheese. It intended to trap other robots for Meggamouse to then attack, or to serve as a distraction. Charles weighs 9kg. The Team Meggamouse was entered into Series 9 by Team Mouse, known outside of the show as Team Tilly. The captain and driver of Meggamouse was 20-year old Shane Lale, with girlfriend Sophie Clarkson driving the minibot Charles. Shane's parents Peter and Jackie Lale complete the team, with Peter Lale being the team's electrical expert. Although Team Tilly are established roboteers in their own right, Meggamouse itself was built by Team Outlaw. Qualification Meggamouse first applied for Series 8 under Team Tilly, but was not selected to compete. The team were more successful with their application for Series 9, with Meggamouse being selected as a reserve. It then joined the main competition following the withdrawal of another machine. Team Tilly then attempted to enter Series 10 with a brand-new machine, Dizzy Tilly. Robot History Series 9 Meggamouse competed in Heat 5, where it faced a tough draw against the destructive bar spinner of the previous series' runner-up, Carbide, alongside fellow newcomers Crackers 'n' Smash and Trolley Rage. In the pits, Meggamouse and Charles were surrounded by replica wedges of swiss cheese, which the team pretended to eat in their hero shot. When 'activate' sounded, Meggamouse targeted the lighter half of the clusterbot, Crackers, bumping it onto the flame pit where the green robot became stuck. Meggamouse's own clusterbot, Charles was instantly immobilised by the first blow it sustained from Carbide. Meggamouse closed in on Carbide while it was attacking Charles, but missed, and became trapped between the arena spikes. After this, Meggamouse used the tactics that its predecessor Mighty Mouse relied upon, and avoided the combat, only engaging in light contact with Crackers and the immobile Trolley Rage. Meggamouse aimed for the arena tyre, and the pit descended. It attempted to flip Crackers, but could not get underneath it, and missed with its attack. Finally, Meggamouse summoned up the courage to attack Carbide, but flipped too early and turned itself over. Although it quickly self-righted, this gave Carbide the opening to close in and shatter Meggamouse's wheel. Meggamouse was still functional internally, and it span in circles, firing its flipper, but as it could not move beyond the space of its own circumference due to the drive for the robot's big and small wheels on its right being shattered by the force of Carbide's blade. Meggamouse was deemed immobile, and it was counted out, while Smash also pushed the long-beaten Charles into the pit. Meggamouse was eliminated from the competition in the first round, alongside Trolley Rage. Results |} Wins/Losses *Wins: 0 *Losses: 1 Series Record NOTE: This Series Record reflects the participation of Team Tilly. The original builder of Meggamouse, Trevor Wright, competed in Robot Wars with Velocirippa, Mighty Mouse and Ironside3. Outside Robot Wars In 2012, Meggamouse placed fourth overall in the Roaming Robots Winter Tour, which was won overall by Ripper. Away from the Robot Wars live events, Meggamouse also competes at Robots Live! events. In the UK Championship in 2016, Meggamouse threw Ka-Pow! out of the arena to win its first-round battle. At the first Robots Live! event of 2017 in Burgess Hill, Meggamouse made it all the way to the final, where it was finally thrown out of the arena by Eruption. It reached this stage after initially losing to Gabriel alongside Heavy Metal and Puck, but was reinstated, and defeated Weird Alice in the semi-final by flipping it onto the arena wall. At Extreme Robots in Manchester, 2017, Meggamouse was in attendance and fought alongside Iron Heart 88, but otherwise only made limited appearances. In Guildford, it fought Atom, Dozer, Behemoth and Saint, where it survived until a head-to-head scenario with Behemoth despite having low levels of gas, but eventually it could not self-right when flipped. Meggamouse made an appearance at the Robots Live! Stevenage event in September 2018, competing for the UK title. There, it fought in the FRA UK Championship, but lost both its first-round battle to Rapid and its 'redemption' battle to defending FRA champion Manta. Meggamouse also fought in a whiteboard battle against Puck and King of Bots competitor Vulcan, which it lost after getting immobilised and pitted by the latter. It also fought for the UK title at Stevenage in 2019, but was immobilised by a strong hit from Nuts, eliminating it in the first round. For more information on Team Tilly's excursions aside from Meggamouse, see here. Robot Wars Live Events Meggamouse competed in the first live event of the new Robot Wars at Barnsley in February 2013. Meggamouse has been a regular competitor at live events since, albeit with limited success outside of Tag Team matches. Meggamouse participated in the Robot Wars World Championship 2015 in Colchester, where it fought Iron-Awe 7, Nuts, and Weird mAlice. Meggamouse started well, repeatedly flipping Nuts while Iron-Awe 7 threw Weird mAlice out of the arena, but unfortunately, Meggamouse drove into the pit and eliminated itself in the first round. Meggamouse made its 2016 debut at the first show in Manchester, where it outlasted Kill-E-Crank-E, which pitted itself, but Meggamouse was pitted by Crushtacean after a close match. At the Guildford event in June, Meggamouse achieved its personal best, placing third at the event, which was won by Ripper. Along the way, Meggamouse defeated Beast, threw Stinger out of the arena, and won against Behemoth in the third-place play-off to earn this title. Trivia *Meggamouse was one of only three robots in Series 9 that didn't have clips from a VT shown in their introduction. The others were Apex and Rusty, fellow reserves. External Links *Team Mouse Facebook page *[http://www.robotwars.tv/competitors/season-9/week-5/meggamouse/ Meggamouse on the Robot Wars website] Category:UK Series competitors Category:Robots which debuted in Series 9 Category:Robots which only fought in Series 9 Category:Animal Based Robots Category:Robots which are still competing today Category:Competitors in Robot Wars Live Events Category:Robots built while Robot Wars was off-air Category:Substitute Robots Category:Robots with Rear-hinged Flippers Category:Robots from Derbyshire Category:Robots which lost their only battle Category:Teams which competed in Clash Bots Category:Robots based on rodents Category:Robots with cameo appearances in Series 10 Category:Minibots (robots) Category:Clusterbots